


and the stars withdraw their shining

by Morningside



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Battle of New York (Marvel), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4570956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morningside/pseuds/Morningside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He’s in the library when he feels the first impact in his bones.  It’s a sensation that he hasn’t felt since he was 15.  He hadn’t at first known what it meant, all those years ago.  Now he knows (the whole world knows) what such an impact in Manhattan can only mean: death, chaos, war.  It means a city on lockdown, a city in shock and bereavement.  It means the stink of hot metal and blood and tears and fear – months of strange dust choking his lungs and settling into his skin."</p><p>Matt's miles away from the action when the Battle of New York hits, but he's been through this before and he knows what his city needs him to do.  And he isn't ready.  The origins of an origin story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the stars withdraw their shining

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/2760.html?thread=4874440#cmt4874440 - sorry that I didn't quite hit all the points.
> 
> Title from the hella scary apocalyptic verses of Joel 2.

He’s in the library when he feels the first impact in his bones.  It’s a sensation that he hasn’t felt since he was 15.  He hadn’t at first known what it meant, all those years ago.  Now he knows (the whole world knows) what such an impact in Manhattan can only mean: death, chaos, war.  It means a city on lockdown, a city in shock and bereavement.  It means the stink of hot metal and blood and tears and fear – months of strange dust choking his lungs and settling into his skin. 

Seconds later, another impact near the first. Somewhere downtown, somewhere dense with skyscrapers and fragile human lives. God have mercy. God have mercy. He sits there a moment (once he stands, the world will never be the same again), his mind racing through where Foggy might be.   Lounging around their apartment, probably, unless unless _unless_ he had gotten bored of the sleepy university and slipped away to lose himself in the press of Midtown.

He fumbles for his phone, orders it to call Foggy. Heads around him whip up and someone makes a disapproving snort. The phone rings once, twice, three times. Matt can barely breathe.

Then he picks up. “Matt, buddy, what’s up?”

“Foggy, where are you?” (“What the hell?” the woman next to him hisses.)

“I’m just in the room with case law and Adventure Time. Is something –”

“Stay there. Don’t leave. Please. I’ll see you…I’ll see you soon. Just don’t go anywhere.”

“What the hell’s going on? Are you okay?”

Across the reading room, someone gasps out a sudden sob. “Holy shit! Everyone, _check the news._ There’s an attack happening! Here! In Manhattan!”

The pressure in the room skyrockets like in a shaken Coke bottle as everyone’s fight-or-flight responses simultaneously engage. There’s a mad grab for phones, the frantic fluttering of fingers across keys.

“Oh no no no no no, a plane into a building –”

“ _Christ_ , not again –”

“Dad? Dad? Are you there?”

( _Matt, Matt_ , Foggy is shouting on the other end of the line.)

“Looks like Midtown –”

“ _My fiancé works in Midtown!"_

“Wait, look at this picture on Twitter! What the hell is that thing?”

Outside, an alarm begins to sound. Matt stands, tells Foggy to be safe, hangs up his phone, and makes his way purposefully towards the doors. Out on the street, people are screaming, crying. The cars on Amsterdam have all come to a stop. There are strange vibrations in the air, somehow more sinuous that the rumbling of planes – but they are all to the south of where he stands. He feels another screeching impact. Downtown, people are dying. Buildings are coming down, and people are doubtless trapped under the rubble. They won’t have much time to be found.

Matt hates the noise, the panic, the sharp chemical smells. And he knows about the cancer rates in the 9/11 first responders. But he’s better than any bloodhound at finding people. He’s needed.

He slips his glasses into his pocket, drops his cane, and begins to run.

* * *

He doesn’t make it far enough.

This far uptown, the streets are eerily still. To be sure, frantic presences scream out their panic from the buildings around him, but people have largely cleared the streets. Everyone is being ushered into basement shelters. He ignores the shouts that beckon him inside as he pelts southward. Sirens pierce his skull from all sides. He can hear the approaching whine of fighter jets. Just like the last time (the stink of bodies, the stink of metal, the stink of fear), only – there’s a strange tremble in the air, a cracking hum that draws him like a magnet.

A distant explosion rocks the pavement, and he nearly loses his footing. He needs to move faster. The explosions, the sound of gunfire – this is all going on far longer than a terrorist attack. What nation could be insane enough to unleash a military assault on Manhattan? And what strange airplanes could make those noises?

He slips through a line of rapidly closing police barricades at 96th, and his heart sinks at the near miss. It will only be harder from here, as he approaches New York’s newest Ground Zero (as he gets ever nearer the fire and the fear). He thinks he could navigate the rooftops, but he’s kept the acrobatics to a minimum for the last decade and he needs to save his strength for the final stretch. He can cut across Broadway’s diagonal, and once he’s south of Columbus Circle…

But then there’s a full line of vehicles that might as well be tanks at 71st. Behind them, a crowd of people stand with their phones in the air. Matt slows and mimics their pose to catch the conversation.

“Like a giant metal _snake,_ what the hell?”

“The beam on Stark Tower, what the…?”

“Fucking Iron Man! It’s gotta be! Fuck that guy, I always said! Don’t fuck around with robots!”

A man next to him dissolves into hysterical giggles. “Is this literally a robot attack? Are we all going to be killed by _robots_? Robots, oh my God!”

 _Robots? Snakes?_ This information is as incomprehensible as the alien buzz in the air from _whatever_ is swarming Midtown.

Matt senses the awful rending of pylons before the screams began. A building is collapsing to his south and east, right in the gleaming heart of the city. He thinks of all the landmarks that stand between him and Stark Tower – of all the _people_ – and bites back a sob.

“That’s it, we’re getting you off the streets,” an official-sounding man barks from the line of massive vans. “Let’s move!”

Matt takes a couple steps back. Perhaps, if he’s smart, he can cut through the park and emerge where people need help. But… This is bad. This is very, very bad. This isn’t a single suicidal fanatic leaving carnage in his wake. This is a full-out attack on his home – an attack by, by _terrorist robot snakes_? And he has no idea if the chaos will stay contained or if will make its way uptown.

Maybe this is where he’s supposed to be, preparing for whatever is to come. Maybe he’ll be just as needed right here. He wishes he could have at least made it back to Hell’s Kitchen, back to the streets that are truly _his_ , but the Upper West Side will have to do for now. He lets himself be herded into a Trader Joe’s below street level.

This is a mistake.

The subterranean concrete box is packed with panicked bodies, all adrenaline with nowhere to run. Things are reasonably quiet, all considered, but the thrum of anxiety emanating from below is as bad as any shouting. Halfway down the stairs, he tries to reverse course, to escape this pen of trapped animals waiting for their deaths.

“Hey, buddy!” a thin man shouts as Matt elbows him.

“Hey, hey!” A cop this time, judging by the authority in his voice. He’s standing at the top of the stairs. When Matt keeps moving against the current, he places a hand on the gun at his hip. “Sir, you need to get below ground. We’re clearing the streets.”

“I can’t,” he stammers, “I can’t go down there. Claustrophobic.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but better cramped than dead.” 

“I need to get out!” He isn’t helping the situation. Heartbeats around him spike to a fever pitch at the threat of a further disturbance.

“Sir, we need everyone to work together right now. We can’t protect you out there. Now _turn around_.”

“Come on, dearie.” A matronly woman grabs for his shoulder and he flinches away. “Let’s get you seated somewhere. I’ll get you something to drink downstairs. I’m sure the store won’t mind.”

And what option does he have? To fight his way up a crowd of civilians, past an irate cop and into a line of military vehicles? The strange sky calls to him – but he doesn’t dodge the woman’s second grab at his arm. He lets her guide him downward.

She’s trying to chatter something soothing. He can feel her regaining control over her own body, grounded by the act of helping someone else, but he ducks away from her as soon as they reach the bottom of the stairs.

People are whispering, praying, crying. There’s not much room to move, but he stumbles towards a corner where he hopes the press of terror will be muted by the earthy smells of the produce displays.

He parks himself at the base of a container of onions, arms clenched around his knees, and he tries not to shake himself apart as the ground rumbles around him.

* * *

The crashes subside after not long after. They never get any closer. The crackle in the air dissipates. Matt knows that this should be a relief, but as time drags on and no one frees them from their packed shelter, a sickening worm of guilt knots his stomach. External waves of other people’s terror batter at him from without, and recriminations claw at him from within.

Outside, there are people dying. There is no doubt in his mind of this. Lives are blinking out under piles of rubble, and here he is huddled safe and useless against bags of produce. The rescue crews are springing into action, and he can’t bring himself to move.

 _Weak_ , Stick sneers from some half-suppressed memory. _You’re soft, kid, and that means you might as well be dead meat. You’re not good for shit if you can’t master your own head._

This is what Stick had meant, then – that moment of proof when your mind and body break down when danger should make them stronger. Everything that he had been through should have prepared him for this day, should have helped him to preserve life from evil, and instead…

Soft indeed. He had thought that might be a virtue, a protest against Stick’s ruthless understanding of strength, but others were now paying the price for the trembling now wracking his frame.

Stick was an asshole. But that didn’t mean that he was wrong.

And what did Stick always tell him when he was overwhelmed with information? _Start with your breathing, kid. Your life depends on your lungs._ Breathing isn’t exactly easy when each inhale brings with it a fresh burst of chemical dust stinking of death, but he unfolds his arms, straightens his back, and tries to relax into the healing rhythms of meditation. He can’t quite achieve a full trance, so counts the minutes until he’s permitted to surface. 

* * *

 

It’s nearly evening when they’re finally freed, the waning rays of sunlight filtering down through an ominous, dusty haze. There are no cars moving on the streets, and the subway is still and silent.

Matt should go downtown. Now is his chance to redeem himself, if he’s quick and smart. But after hours trapped underground, he feels neither. His breathing exercises were barely enough to keep him together; he’s in no state to assist others.

Up here, the air burns his lungs. He already knows that they’ll continue to burn for months. The anticipation is even worse than the actual sting.

He very nearly breaks down and asks a police officer for assistance, but he doesn’t feel very deserving of help right now. He’s sure Foggy’s in a panic, but his cell reception is totally dead. The best thing he can do is return to his room for the night. He begins to trudge home alone.

When he at last reaches his door, Foggy leaps to his feet the moment Matt sticks his key in the lock.

“Matt!” The relieved weight of Foggy’s bear hug nearly knocks Matt off his feet. “Oh my God, Matt,” he babbles, salty tears leaking from his eyes. “You’re okay. I don’t know if I want to kiss you or kill you. That call, buddy! I was afraid that you…but you’re okay. Oh my God. What happened?”

“Hey, Foggy,” Matt breathes into his long, sweat-damp hair.

Foggy pulls back, grabbing Matt’s shoulders. “Where the hell were you? They let us out of our bunkers hours ago.”

“I, um, I decided to go to the grocery store. Shit timing, I guess. They kept us there a long time, then it took me a while to get home. Lost my cane in the confusion.”

“Fuck, Matt. How’d you get back?”

“Ah, some people helped me home. They were headed this way.”

Foggy takes a bracing breath. “Yeah. This is when this city really shows its spirit. We New Yorkers take care of each other when it really counts.”

Matt’s stomach twists. He extracts himself from Foggy’s grip and collapses onto his bed. The cheap mattress bends as Foggy sits heavily beside him. “Foggy, do you know what happened? I was underground, and people are saying the craziest things. Have you seen anything? Pictures? News?”

“No one knows what’s going on. People are just supposed to stay in their homes for now. Matt… As far as anyone can tell, this weird beam shot out of Stark Tower, and then some crazy sci-fi shit happened and these robot things flew out of a hole in the sky and started taking out buildings. Then they’re saying that Stark showed up in his suit with Captain fucking America in tow and they somehow stopped the robots. I know, none of it sounds real, but the pictures are everywhere and there’s no way it’s all faked. Matt…even if those things are gone for good, this changes everything. And I mean _everything_.”

Matt thinks about his training, about his failure, about the fact that war (what war? whose war?) has apparently come. “Yeah, yeah it does.”

“I’ve heard that people are congregating in Low. Y’know, if you don’t want to be alone right now. Wanna go check it out?”

“No, Foggy, I – I can’t really do more people right now. No more crowds for the night. You can go, though, if you want.”

“Shit, Matt. I’m not leaving you.”

“Then I say we break out some beers and face the music of our brave new world tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow – or next month.” Foggy scrubs his hands over his face. “I am really, really not ready to hear who died.”

“Tomorrow, Foggy. We’ve gotta go help. People need us.”

Foggy huffs and shakes his head. “I’m giving you, like, a _super_ incredulous look right now.”

“You know there have to be people trapped under those fallen buildings. They might not have much time.”

“Shouldn’t we leave that to the professionals? Professionals with professional cancer-blocking gear who presumably have the full use of all their senses to professionally navigate a disaster zone?”

“Foggy, my senses… You know my ears are pretty sharp, and that could be useful for hearing people who are struck. Or they can stick me on handing out water bottles. I don’t care, but we can’t just hide up here. We’re alive. That means we can help.”

Foggy scrubs his hands over his face. “Okay, okay, as soon as it’s light I’ll head down with you to see what we can do. Because if I say no, I’m pretty sure you’re crazy enough to run off without me. And I’m not letting you out of my sight for the next month. You really scared me there, buddy.”

Matt wonders what Foggy would say if he knew that Matt had tried to run into the danger. It’s really not worth pondering, so he awkwardly pats Foggy’s shoulder and stands to fetch some beers.

* * *

The next morning, they make their way downtown, Matt on Foggy’s elbow. The air _burns_ , and it’s not just Matt’s senses on high alert, not just the knowledge that he’s tasting the char and rot of human bodies on the breeze. Foggy’s breaths are labored, even through the dust masks that he had pulled from under his bed. But he’s valiantly keeping up a running commentary, and Matt loves him a bit for the effort. “The visibility is shot to hell, like those photos you see of Beijing. Everything’s just…gray. And covered in this dust. Cancer-dust, probably, so try to keep the breathing to a minimum, yeah?”

“I’ll do what I can,” he chuckles humorlessly. “What _can_ you see?” It’s not just an act. The air is acrid and ashy, even thicker than what he remembers from 9/11, and it throws off his long-distance perception even worse than snow.

Foggy leans forward a bit. “There’s some orange tape across the street a few blocks down. Lots of people in a line. I think they’re signing in volunteers. You ready to go for it? We’ve come this far…" 

Matt hasn’t properly attended church in years, but he spent the long hours of last night with his dad’s rosary woven through his fingers. He thumbs at it now where it’s buried in his pocket. He tugs Foggy to the right. “I’ve got a different idea.”

“How different are we talking, here? Crazy Murdock different?”

“Foggy, I need…I need to know if my home still exists. My school. My dad’s gym. We’re local boys. We know this turf better than anyone. Let’s just…go. Check out how things are. You said the buildings aren’t so beat up over here, that those robot-things were mostly on the east side? If we branch off from the main effort, we might be able to find someone and then go get them help.”

“How do you manage to make ‘crazy Murdock different’ sound reasonable?” Foggy groans. “Matt, what if there’s one of those things still lurking around? Don’t we want to be by the guys with guns if that happens?”

It’s been a while since Matt threw a good punch, but oh, would he love for one of the attackers to try to get within arm’s reach of him. Whatever they were, these things that thought they could lay waste to his city… His blood fizzes at the thought of action, and it feels _good_. “Foggy, what if that beam starts up again? What if they nuke the whole island?” 

“You sure know how to make a guy feel safe and sound. Jesus.”

“All I'm saying is that all of this is so far out of our control right now, I don’t think that ‘safe’ even factors into it. We can only do what _we_ need to do, and what I need is to know is that the gym on 49th between 9th and 10th is still there.”

“And I guess what I need is to make sure you don’t trip on a building or get eaten by a robot. There’s another line of orange tape coming up – knee height, easy to step over. I don’t see anyone else here. You ready to go rogue?”

They walk quickly and quietly after that, Foggy commenting on the damage under his breath. Things aren’t so bad on this side of town – some smashed up roofs, some busted windows, nothing too catastrophic – but Matt thinks he hears someone’s muffled gasping a few blocks away. From the same place echoes a slow drip of water. A burst pipe? A collapsed water tower? Either way, it signals distress. If only he can figure out how to steer Foggy in the right direction…

“Shit,” Foggy mutters, “there’s someone coming towards us, and I don’t think he’s our welcoming committee. Orange vest over a cop uniform. Ugly scowl. He’s not happy.”

“Hey,” the policeman shouts, crunching over shards of glass, “this area is restricted. No gawkers. You wanna see what’s happening, go home and Google it like everyone else. We don’t have the time to babysit asshole disaster tourists.”

Matt tugs down his mask, taps his cane against the pavement, and flashes his go-to mollifying smile. “Not much chance of gawking from me.”

“We’re here to help,” Foggy says. “Whatever you need.”

The officer hisses out a hard breath through his teeth. “I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking, kid, I need you to get your cripple friend out of a war zone.” Matt’s hands tighten on his cane and Foggy gasps beside him. “Look, I ain’t here to be PC. I’m here to save lives. If you really want to do the same, you can go donate blood or money or whatever. Don’t get in the way, and don’t get killed.”

“This is our home!” Foggy cries out.

“Not right now, it’s not. You live here? Take your buddy and go crash with a friend. You don’t want to be around this stuff. This isn’t the time to play at being a hero. Leave that for the professionals.”

Matt doesn’t miss that the man has never spoken to him. 

He might be out of practice, and he might be choking on chemical smog, but he could _show_ this asshole just who he was dismissing. A quick roll to knock him off his feet and Matt could outrun and outwit him without breaking a sweat. And then he could sprint east, east to where he was _needed_ , to where innocent people were even now fighting for their dying breaths…

But for Foggy’s warm presence at his side, arguing with the cop on his behalf. Each sure step would expose him, shattering the gentle, fragile, intellectual life that he had fought so hard for.

The impulse to help. The impulse to hide.

“He’s right, Foggy,” Matt finally growls, cutting off the growing fight. “We don’t want to be around… _this_.”

“Matt? What about your dad’s gym?”

“I’m sure it’s fine. Let’s get out of here.”

“ _Dick_ ,” Foggy mutters at the cop, but doesn’t say much after that.

On the way home, they pass by a booth handing out tote bags filled with water bottles, spare batteries, dust masks, plastic lab goggles… Foggy immediately tears into the granola bar inside, his stomach rumbling in anticipation. Matt’s throat burns too much to think of food.

“Hey,” he asks, running his hands over the image screen-printed on the side of the bag. “What’s this picture? A logo?”

“Yeah, Stark Industries.”

Stark. The same Tony Stark whose building was at the epicenter of the attack. “Is it on all the bags?”

“Think so. The table was under a Stark-branded tent. Whatever Stark has to do with all this, looks like he took the time to park the flying suit and tell his underlings to go buy some batteries. Why?”

Matt’s right hand clenches around his cane. He’s careful to keep his left arm relaxed around Foggy’s elbow. “Oh, no reason. Just curious who to thank. For the batteries. It’s good to see that Stark hasn’t forgotten about us little people stuck on the ground.”

 

There are a few lessons to be learned from this (because everything in life comes with lessons):

     He wasn’t ready when the moment came, and others paid the price for his negligence. He could not be caught unawares again.

     On the battlefield, he was useless when he had to keep up the façade of being normal. War had come, and he couldn’t fight it with friends by his side.  To do so would mean losing one, or the other, or both.

     And rich men who flew above the city in magic suits while fighting mysterious foes would only bring grief on those below. War might have burst through the sky, but it would be fought on the streets.

 

So that night, as soon as Foggy is snoring, Matt pulls on a hoodie, and his new dust mask and goggles (courtesy of Tony Stark’s uneasy conscience) and slips out into the dark. This time, no more lives will be lost to his carelessness. He is prepared, and he is alone.

**Author's Note:**

> The Netflix series rather brilliantly reconciles the “gritty” Hell’s Kitchen of the comics’ early run with the pricey neighborhood of today by saying that the nice neighborhood was wiped out by the Battle of New York. The only problem with that is that Stark Tower is on the east side, and HK is on the west, and Avengers doesn’t show that much of the city getting destroyed. My somewhat roundabout explanation is that HK sustained some minor damage in the chaos (a couple Chitauri went exploring away from the main attack?) but wasn’t totally leveled. The big Stark bucks went to repair the “ground zero” space but stuff that wasn’t flashy high rises got neglected in the repair efforts. A slower rot set into HK, especially re: fixing its infrastructure, as a lot of people (and money) fled the city in fear of a follow-up attack. That seems most consistent with the corruption and decay that we see in DD – HK is ailing, but it’s not a flattened battleground.
> 
> morningsided.tumblr.com


End file.
